Miss this...
...but for me it was more Commodore 64 games and Sega Genesis games rather than Nintendo Entertainment System games that captured my adolescent attention so intently.
For those of you who aren't sure what this image is depicting, this is one of the video game aisles that were commonplace from the mid '80s throughout the late '90s in a retail store called Toys 'R' Us. They went out of business here in the U.S. a few years ago, but apparently they are making a bit of a comeback these days, at least the name brand is.
How the Toys 'R' Us system for purchasing games worked was: There were no actual boxes stacked on the shelves then… no, no… there were only laminated placards depicting the front and back of the game box and tickets you took from the pouch of the corresponding game then moseyed on up to register, paid for the game, and finally liberated your game from the dark and creepy “game cage” where the video games of all color, genre, and platform were held in captivity for some unknown offense.
Ah, 1986…where have you gone?
The artist of this wonderful, nostalgia-filled piece is Bill Mudron. While I think he's severely under priced a few of these titles (Rygar for $9.99? Little Samson for $44.90??), he otherwise does a masterful job of capturing the overwhelming magic of slowly walking down one of these lengthy aisles and stopping every few steps because you just came across something new and cool that you had no idea was a really real thing until just that moment.
Bravo, sir.
Mentioned games
